Ter-Kostanova L.N., Yashina V.S. Features of teaching the English language to students marketers in contemporary Russia

Образец ссылки на эту статью:  Ter-Kostanova L.N., Yashina V.S. Features of teaching the English language to students marketers in contemporary Russia // Бизнес и дизайн ревю. 2017. Т. 1. № 3 (7). С. 15.

УДК 37.013’81

FEATURES OF TEACHING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO STUDENTS MARKETERS IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA

Ter-Kostanova Lititsiya Nikolaevna

Institute of Business and Design (B&D), Moscow, Russia (129010, Moscow, Protopopovskiy lane, 9), Senior Teacher, Department of Humanitarian Disciplines, Teacher of the Discipline “Foreign Language”, letie@yandex.ru, 8-926-357-30-39.

Yashina Valeriya Sergeevna

Institute of Business and Design (B&D), Moscow, Russia (129090, Moscow, Protopopovskiy lane, 9), 1st year student, Faculty of Business Management, iamscand@list.ru, +7-903-756-11-99.

The article is devoted to an overview of the global historical development of marketing in order to determine its influence on formation of marketing in Russia as a sphere of public activity and an academic discipline. Features of work in the Russian marketing companies, in particular, the use of numerous English borrowings in their employees’ speech are illustrated.

The necessity of learning a foreign language (English) at the University as an instrument of professional activity in the field of Russian marketing is demonstrated. Also the authors of the article show how important motivation of students-marketers to learn English is in modern conditions.

The main scientific result is the authors' proposal about the direct involvement of students in active discussion of foreign language intervention and the limits of the use of Anglicisms in the speech of the Russian professional marketers.

Key words: marketing; foreign language teaching; a tool for professional activities; linguistic intervention; English-language terminology; professional Anglicism.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ОБУЧЕНИЯ АНГЛИЙСКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ СТУДЕНТОВ-МАРКЕТОЛОГОВ В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ РОССИИ

Тер-Костанова Литиция Николаевна

АНО ВО «Институт бизнеса и дизайна», Москва, Россия (129090, г. Москва, Протопоповский переулок, 9), старший преподаватель кафедры гуманитарных дисциплин, преподаватель дисциплины «Иностранный язык», letie@yandex.ru, 8-926-357-30-39.

Яшина Валерия Сергеевна

АНО ВО «Институт бизнеса и дизайна», Москва, Россия (129090, г. Москва, Протопоповский переулок, 9), студентка 1 курса очного отделения Факультета управления бизнесом,  iamscand@list.ru, 8-903-756-11-99.

Статья посвящена обзору мирового исторического развития маркетинга с целью определения его влияния на становление маркетинга в России как сферы общественной деятельности и учебной дисциплины. Проиллюстрированы особенности работы в российских маркетинговых компаниях, в частности, употребление в речи их сотрудников многочисленных английских заимствований.

Доказана необходимость обучения иностранному языку (английскому) в вузе как инструменту профессиональной деятельности в сфере российского маркетинга. Продемонстрирована важность мотивации изучения английского языка у студентов-маркетологов в современных условиях. 

Главный научный результат – предложение авторов о непосредственном участии обучающихся в обсуждении активной иноязычной интервенции и границ употребления англицизмов в профессиональной речи российских маркетологов.

Ключевые слова: маркетинг; обучение английскому языку; инструмент профессиональной деятельности; языковая интервенция; англоязычная терминология; профессиональный англицизм.

The overview of the modern English language teaching in our country we would like to start with the overview of the world history of marketing. It can be divided into six stages (by Bartels, 1974; Dawson, 1969; Keith, 1960; Kotler and Keller, 2006) that have been based on evolution of the field. Each of the stages is characterized with different practices and challenges, but despite all, one thing that has remained common   and certain is that at the center of every stage of development is exchange of goods, services, and ideas.

Let us start with the birth of, as it may be called, marketing and its elements. The base elements of marketing emerged simultaneously with the appearance of market and trade which lead us to the ancient civilizations of the age of about 6-7 thousand years. These first forms were price policy and advertisement. Those are basic concepts of economics but they are worth mentioning because marketing started to root from them.

The second stage, called the Production Era, emerged in the period between the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. Since there was lack of commodities, businesses were aimed to produce more goods in numeral value. As long as someone was producing, someone else would want to buy it. This orientation rose to popularity due to shortages in the market, hence creating the foundation of Jean-Baptiste Say's famous remark: «Supply creates its own demand». Manufacturers wanted to produce as many commodities as possible for it was economical to produce with their resources. Industrialization led to mass production at lower cost per unit, and mass production, in its turn, led to standardization as replacement for custom made products. Producers believed that the price was decisive and most important factor for customers to buy or not to buy the product. It was their mistake and the reason why the production era was defective. They should have concentrated on the customers’ needs but the only thing they were not ignorant about was the quantity. As years passed, the falsity of their mindset started to become more and more obvious. When it reached its apex, the next era, called the Sales Era, emerged.

This third period of marketing development started in the 1930s. After the realization of the mistakes they had made in the previous period, producers understood that their mass production and an enormous number of goods were not giving back any significant results from the effort that had been put in. They needed to come up with some other ways to make their sales go up or at least be stable and not unprofitable. They found a way but, unfortunately, it was defective and not correct again. The idea was to be highly aggressive when it came to advertising and promoting the products. By implementing this policy they were trying to take a market share away from the great number of competitors that had almost identical products. Thus, the era happened to be as defective as the previous one because the producers still had not given any attention to the consumers’ needs. They just stubbornly kept pitching their semi-needed commodity to them. Though, the era did have its own pros. For instance, branding as a part of marketing and as a process in general started to actively develop.

The forth marketing stage is known as the Marketing Era and is perceived as the most effective one. It commenced in the 1950s. The aggressive strategy in promoting goods that had originated in the Sale Era began to lose ground. Producers were realizing that this was not the best variant, that smuggling in goods was not an effective method, as soon as consumers have their own needs and wants that have to be respected. Thus, the Marketing Era is characterized with effective marketing objectives which are aimed at «consumer’s satisfaction is the key». Consumers have demands, and the goal is to identify them and create that kind of products that can help satisfy the needs.

As for the real state of marketing, it consists of two eras, namely the relationship marketing era and the social marketing era. The first one means that producers are in a great need to establish beneficial interactions and bonds with clients and to develop them. Those relations have to be long-lasting in order to enhance client’s loyalty for a brand and encourage repeat buying. Generalizing, it is needed not to attract new clients but keep the old ones stay and make them happy. The authors such as Don Peppers, Martha Rogers and Philip Kotler considered this the most important thing as the cost of attracting a new customer is estimated to be five times the cost of keeping a current customer happy.

The final stage is the Social Marketing era characterized in keeping relationships with clients in a real time mode. For example, business can be run day and night 24/7. Social interactions and participation is the key.

As we can see, the history of marketing happened to be very broad and even long. Mistakes were gradually removed. Marketing was developing through stages and right now is considered to be the most effective period of all. Of course, it is going to change because there is no limit to perfection.

It is important to mention that the history was taken as it is in the whole, but, as we live in Russia, we would like to highlight the history of marketing particularly in our country. Our goal is to find out: whether it has different periods or not, if there are any distinctions and so on.

Four periods can be defined in the Russian marketing according to «Marketing: lecture notes» by Mihaleva E.P., starting with the end of 19th century to these days [4].

Thus, the first period was dated back to 1880-1917. Marketing had been progressing by virtue of entrepreneurship’s leading role in the pre-revolutionary Russian economy. Though, we cannot talk about a holistic marketing system. There were only the beginning steps for it, but at least they were marketing elements. While pitching their products, producers then used printed and wall-mounted advertisements, and some methods were taken from PR (also considered as a marketing branch). Testament to could be industrial fairs, for instance, well-known Nizhny Novgorod Fair.

The second stage started at the beginning of the 20th century. Marketing got a rapid pulse in development because of advancing industry. However, it did not come out into full scientific usage because Soviet economics had a negative attitude toward marketing.

The last but one stage emerged in the70s. It was a subject of a great interest. Nevertheless, marketing was not in use because Russia then did not have a market economy, it had a specific Soviet economic system in which the price and quantity of goods were fixed and controlled by the government.

In the 90s the Russian marketing finally began to grow properly. This stage started with the Law of Property in 1990 and is still in play.

It should be noted that in contemporary Russia the work in marketing is inherently connected with the English language. In this context, in universities the aim of teaching disciplines such as "Foreign Language", "Business Foreign Language" to students who have chosen marketing, advertising, etc. as their future professions is the English language acquisition as a tool for professional activities. In order to achieve this goal the foreign language teaching in Russian higher education institutions is to take a quantum leap to complete multiple tasks simultaneously, given the stepped-up pace of training.

The Program Maximum, in this case, is formation of the certified marketer’s ability to communicate freely with representatives of pioneer marketing companies in their native language which helps eliminate barriers of distrust and create conditions for the effective cooperation, as well as the ability to extract from foreign-language sources necessary information about marketing objectives, strategies, techniques, etc. and to use it in the future.

The Program Minimum, in its turn, appears to be development of marketing specialists ready for professional communication in a weird "English-Russian" language from the first days of work. It is important to prevent the graduate from feeling small when being inevitably battered by English borrowings in a Russian company. Let us look through some of these words:

Армрестлинг (arm-wrestling) means a situation when a hard dictation is made by a consumer or seller as it comes to quoting a price.

Битуби (B2B - Business-to-Business) is a term used to describe companies that sell to other businesses.

Битуси (B2C - Business-to-Consumer) is a term used to describe companies that sell directly to consumers.

Кик-офф (kick-off) is a quick meet up to determine a participant role in the project and planning checkpoints.

Чекпоинт (Checkpoints) are controlling points of how the work is being done.

СВОТ (SWOT) is an acronym that stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A SWOT analysis is an organized list of your business's greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Taking in consideration the above, it should be pointed out that students’ motivation to learn the foreign language becomes increasingly important. Therefore, the task of the teacher is to explain that those who have chosen the profession of marketing do not belong to those who claim that "they don’t need English in their future work." On the contrary, the least that these students should do is learn professional English terms which gave life to so-called professional Anglicisms, with a clear understanding what is meant by them.

Looking at a great many English borrowings used by Russian marketers we would like to reflect on the reasons for such an active linguistic intervention and its consequences. The explanation for this phenomenon apparently lies in the fact that the birthplace of modern marketing is considered to be the USA, moreover, marketing as an academic science originated from America as well. Its spread around the world resulted in the introduction of the conceptual apparatus of the discipline in all corners of the globe.

Besides, it is obvious the lack of the Russian equivalent of a particular English term forces Russian specialists to use language borrowings after their minor phonetic adaptation. And there is nothing untoward: this language practice that has been occurring throughout Russia's history, is now a part of the process of language globalization, and contributes, according to some scholars, to the development of the Russian language. As A. I. Dyakov told it, borrowings having a word-building potential are involved in creation of new words according to existing word-building patterns. Thus, a significant part of verbs and adjectives that came to the Russian language from English, were formed using standard word-formative elements (suffixes, endings, etc.), for example: оффшорная зона (offshore zone), дистрибьюторские права (distribution rights) [2, p. 61]. As explained by John Dunn, borrowed words become full-fledged elements of the Russian language [1, p. 7].

However, such Anglicisms as "импрувить [ɪmˈpruːvɪt'] (to improve)" and "девелопить [dɪˈveləpɪt'] (to develop)" sometimes used in oral and written translation from English into our native language instead of the Russian equivalents "улучшать" and "развивать” are being rejected by many Russian speakers, including the authors of this article, as something discordant and unnecessary. We believe that promoting such Anglicisms is an attempt to demonstrate importance, awareness and pseudo professionalism. In our opinion, this behavior has similarities with the behavior of a teenager who uses, for example, strong language to assert himself in the eyes of others, which is perceived by adults as a ridiculous, awkward and, generally, passing phenomenon. And if it must pass, is it worth trying to change the situation which often gets the form of a caricature? Should we defend our native language from unwanted borrowings or adopt John Dunn’s viewpoint that despite all globalizing processes by which the Russian language is changed, enriched, maybe complicated it still remains pretty much the same [1, p.7]?

The answer was given long ago in the 18th century by one of the greatest Russian scholars - M. Lomonosov - who said that we should take care of the properties of our own language for what we love in the style of Latin, French or German is sometimes laughable in Russian [3].

In conclusion, we would like to say that in modern conditions of getting higher education in Russia University students should be explained by the English language teacher that learning a foreign language does not mean simplifying the national one with superfluous borrowings; that it provides for using value added Anglicisms when needed (for instance, rendering an English article in Russian and similar). The upshot here is that the process of second language acquisition should be carried out under the motto: “Feel at Home with a Foreign Language Not Overlooking the Home Language!”

Список литературы

  1. Афоризмы о русском языке... [Электронный ресурс]. Режим доступа: (дата обращения: 06.08.2017).
  2. Данн Дж. Языковая глобализация и русский язык // Троицкий вариант. Наука. 2015. № 19. С. 7.
  3. Дьяков А. И. Деривационная интеграция англицизмов в русском языке конца XX века в функциональном аспекте: дис.... канд. фил., наук. Новосибирск. 2001. С. 61-74.
  4. Михалева Е.П. Маркетинг. Конспект лекций. М.: Юрайт-Издат, 2010. 224 с.
  5. Словарь Мультитран. [Электронный ресурс]. Режим доступа: https://www.multitran.ru/c/m.exe?l1=1&l2=2&s=осуществлять процесс.

 References

  1. Aforizmy o russkom yazyke... URL:
  2. Dunn G. Yazykovaya globalizatsiya i russkiy yazyk - Troitskiy variant - Nauka. 2015. no 19. p. 7.
  3. Dyakov A. I. Derivatsionnaya integratsiya anglitsizmov v russkom yazyke kontsa XX veka v funktsionalnom aspekte: dis.... kand. fil., nauk. Novosibirsk. 2001. p. 61-74.
  4. Mikhaleva E. P. Marketing. Konspekt lektsiy. M.: Yurait-Izdat. 2010. 224 p.
  5. https://www.multitran.ru/.

Рецензенты:

Ильченко С.В. – кандидат педагогических наук, доцент, НОЧУ ВО «Московский экономический институт».

Козырева Н.Е.  – кандидат педагогических наук, декан факультета управления бизнесом АНО ВО «Институт бизнеса и дизайна».

Работа поступила в редакцию: 12.08.2017 г.